Also, cesium-134, niobium-95, and cobalt-60 were found in southeast Finland. These two types of detections may or may not be related.

These detections were not caused by the Chernobyl forest fire, since I-131 decays away in 80 days, and Cs-134 decays away in 20 years. The Chernobyl catastrophe occurred in 1986, 29 years ago.

Iodine-131 levels in Gunma prefecture sludge skyrocketed on their May 1 report to the highest readings since the huge Fukushima emissions of July 2013. These analyses were actually done in April 21-23. This area is to the southwest of the Fukushima plant.

The lag time involved for the gaseous iodine to move from Japan to Scandinavia would allow the I-131 to decay by 50-75%, so the Finland and Norway detections are more robust than they look at first glance.

As of Friday morning, the rain outside of Fresno has some measure of this smoke plume mixed in with it, and is falling as snow in the mountains to the northeast.

The plume should become entrained in a storm that is developing in this area. This image is a forecast for Saturday night. A snowstorm is moving over the Rockies, and the rain and snow will later move over the northern plains, the upper Great Lakes, into Canada.